Program for Women in Mathematics

Institute For Advanced Study, Princeton NJ

Investigators

Abstract

The Program for Women in Mathematics is an annual, ten-day mentoring program for women, co-sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Study and Princeton University. The program takes place at the Institute each spring and is organized by senior women in mathematics. Participants include a mix of undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, as well as established senior women as organizers and lecturers. The goals of the program are: 1) to enhance the mathematics education of talented women mathematicians through a rigorous academic program; and 2) to retain these women in the field by providing mentoring and by establishing an extensive network of women mathematicians. The topic for the 2004 program is Analysis and Nonlinear PDEs. Organizers are by Sun-Yung Alice Chang, Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University, and, as in past years, Karen Uhlenbeck, the Sid W. Richardson Foundation Regents' Chair in Mathematics at the University of Texas at Austin. The Program for Women in Mathematics addresses issues facing women at transition points in mathematics. Program activities include an undergraduate-to-beginning-graduate lecture in an applied area related to the research subject of the year; an advanced graduate course intended as an introduction to state-of-the-art research in that year's chosen field of mathematics; a research seminar in which participants present their research; problem sessions; and a women-in-science seminar that includes interviews with senior women in the field and organized panel discussions on topics of interest. The program has helped to establish a network of women at various levels in the field who can support and mentor one another through difficult career (and life) transition points; expanding and strengthening that network is an ongoing aim of the program.